Water Department

The City is blessed with an abundance of high quality, readily accessible water. The City regularly explores opportunities to diversify our water sources, and currently operates 9 separate wells across the City. These wells produce water that is introduced directly into the water system without any form of treatment. Our water must pass frequent testing of a range of potential contaminants. As long as we continue passing all these tests, water treatment will not be necessary.

Central City has about 12 miles of water mains in the system. In 2008 we pumped 51,189,000 gallons of water. Our largest water customer is the ethanol plant.

Water is consumed throughout the system and surplus water is stored in a 500,000 gallon water tower. Our water tower serves several important purposes:

First, it stores water for emergency purposes. If the power goes out, and the wells can't pump, we can continue providing water service.

Second, it provides backup for extreme water use periods. For example, if a major fire broke out, our water consumption might exceed our pumping capacity. Water storage addresses that problem.

Third, it gives our wells a break. Once the tower is full, our wells can all shut down for awhile until the tower is drained to a pre-determined level. This allows us to more efficiently operate the system.